If one identified the primary health problems facing the world today based on the public pronouncements of governmental authorities and media coverage, one would assume these would be epidemics and pandemics of infectious diseases, most immediately those concerned with avian (SARS) and swine flu (H1N1). In reality, the primary health problem facing the world is the absence of health equity. Health equity represents a situation where unfair or unjust differences in health status are not present. The lack of health equity – or the presence of health inequity – is inferred when there are inequalities in health that are unnecessary. It is increasingly being recognised that these inequalities in health result from inequalities in living conditions that reflect power imbalances in society.